Items tagged with CPU

We have covered Intel’s Broadwell microarchitecture extensively over the last few months. The relatively high-performance and low-power characteristics of Broadwell make it a good fit for a wide range of devices and systems. And as such, Broadwell has found its way into everything from notebooks and tablets, to an array of All-In-Ones and Intel’s own NUC ultra-small-form-factor systems.Broadwell, however, just recently—as in the last few weeks—made it to the DIY and full-sized desktop market. 14nm Broadwell processors weren’t originally destined for the channel, but Intel ultimately changed course...Read more...

Had Paul Revere been a computer geek living in the modern era, he'd have just flown in from Computex and hopped on his Harley so he could cruise the streets yelling, "Iris Pro Graphics is coming! Iris Pro Graphics is coming!" That's because Intel today fleshed out its fifth generation Core processor lineup with 10 new desktop and mobile Broadwell-H CPUs, each infused with Iris Pro Graphics 6200. The unofficial hope is that these new CPUs will hold users over until Skylake arrives. Intel's also aiming at a segment that is content to roll with integrated graphics, but want something better than what's...Read more...

Intel has refreshed its line-up of processors in a number of categories over the last few months. Late last year, Intel’s current flagship desktop processors based on Haswell-E arrived, followed shortly thereafter by the low-power Core M series for ultra-mobile devices, and then 5th Generation Core processors for notebooks and all-in-ones. Intel has made some noise in some other markets as well in the same time period—see here for an example of a killer SSD—but today the company officially takes the wraps off of its latest processors for mission-critical enterprise server and pro workstation applications,...Read more...

Many of the higher end and flagship devices on tap for the coming weeks and months will sport Qualcomm's Snapdragon 810 processor inside, a 64-bit System-on-Chip (SoC) featuring quad-core ARM Cortex A57 and A53 CPUs. But what's potentially even more exciting is a cognitive platform Qualcomm is working on that will be supported by its forthcoming Snapdragon 820 processor. More on that in a moment, but first a few details about the chip itself. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 is being designed on a leading edge FinFET process node, though the company didn't say if it's using TSMC's 16nm manufacturing process...Read more...

CES is the time of year when computing companies of every type show off their next-generation hardware, and AMD is no exception. Hot Hardware sat down with the Sunnyvale-based company to talk about its major plans for 2015 in both gaming and the CPU side of the business. In gaming, the big news of the event is the imminent deployment of displays based on the so-called FreeSync standard. FreeSync is the brand name created for what the VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association) refers to as Adaptive Sync (not to be confused with NVIDIA's "Adaptive V-Sync." Both FreeSync...Read more...

When Apple debuted its A8 SoC, it proved to be a modest tweak of the original A7. Despite packing double the transistors and an improved GPU, the heart of the A8 SoC is the same dual-core Apple "Cyclone" processor tweaked to run at higher clock speeds and with stronger total GPU performance. Given this, many expected that the Apple A8X would be cut from similar cloth -- a higher clock speed, perhaps, and a larger GPU, but not much more than that. It appears those projections were wrong. The new A8X chip inside Apple's new iPad Air 2, is a triple-core variant of the A8, with a higher clock speed...Read more...

LG is no small name in the smartphone space, and its G-series of flagship Android devices have raised the bar year after year. Going forward, however, LG's phones will involve a twist: the silicon within will be LG's own handiwork. The company is revealing this week its first mobile application processor, which features an eight core architecture and LTE-A network capabilities. The new AP is being dubbed NUCLUN, and it'll make its debut in the G3 Screen (shown below), a phone engineered specifically for the Korean market (at least for now). As you'd likely expect, NUCLUN is built around ARM's big.LITTLE...Read more...

While there’s no guarantee for traction in the market, lowering the price to a point where consumers can’t help but notice is surely a step in the right direction. AMD’s doing just that with its A-series APUs this week, which is hopes will enable more mainstream PC builders to snag a twelve compute core (4CPU + 8GPU) A-series APU without completely breaking the bank. It’s also suggesting that these products will support DX12, OpenCL 2.0, and Project FreeSync in the future, which should ease any concerns about their ability to handle what’s just around the bend. The...Read more...

Today, at ARM TechCon, AMD is kicking off the conference by launching its new embedded ARM platform (codenamed Hierofalcon) and its associated ARM Cortex-A57 chip, codenamed Seattle. This new solution is debuting inside the first ARM-based network function virtualization platform, and is meant as a proof-of-concept demonstration that shows AMD can build enterprise networking hardware around an ARM platform and that the chip can handle data migration from an x86 platform. Network Function Virtualization? What's That? To understand the play AMD is making here, it helps to delve just a little into...Read more...

Netvertibles, Chromebooks, and Xbox consoles turned into laptops. We've seen all of that, but a 3D-printed laptop huddled around a Raspberry Pi? It sounds like nerd heaven, and it's now a reality. The Pi-Top is very likely the world's first 3D-pri ted, Raspberry Pi-powered laptop, and rather than just being a one-off project, it's one that you can enjoy yourself. The Pi-Top's creator is offering DIY kits up for sale, with a price point that's actually fairly accessible for the average (okay, maybe skewing hardcore) hobbyist If you have access to a 3D printer, you can print the shell on your own...Read more...

The television may not be what it once was for a mainstay like Toshiba, but the company's still investing in other growth areas. Just this week, it announced plans to plow 200 billion yen (around $1.9 billion) into its chip business beyond the current year. The outfit's CEO, Hisao Tanaka, confessed as much during an opening ceremony surrounding its chip fabrication plant in Yokkaichi, Japan. In case the financial sum wasn't a clue, Tanaka said that "boosting sales and profits" in the company's semiconductor unit was being made an even greater priority than becoming the world's leader in NAND flash...Read more...

It has been more than a year since AMD launched its last major update to the top end FX processor line -- the FX-9590. The company has been quiet in the face of Intel's high-end launches, but today AMD is shipping a new CPU that's aimed at multi-core performance enthusiasts who don't want a furnace sitting on their motherboards, and prefer more modest power consumption and quiet computing. The new FX-8370, FX-8370E, and FX-8320E are familiar in many ways. These cores are still based on the older Piledriver architecture that debuted in 2012, they can still process two threads per module and four...Read more...

It has been more than a year since AMD launched its last major update to the top end FX processor line -- the FX-9590. The company has been quiet in the face of Intel's high-end launches, but today AMD is shipping a new CPU that's aimed at multi-core performance enthusiasts who don't want a furnace sitting on their motherboards, and prefer more modest power consumption and quiet computing. The new FX-8370, FX-8370E, and FX-8320E are familiar in many ways. These cores are still based on the older Piledriver architecture that debuted in 2012, they can still process two threads per module and four...Read more...

A new Nintendo 3DS is on the horizon, and we sincerely hope it’s not really called “New 3DS,” as today’s Nintendo Direct suggests. Surely, the venerable game maker can come up with a better name than that for the latest version of its handheld – but a lame name is going to be the least of Nintedo’s concerns: the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles game will only play on the New 3DS models, thanks to a new processor. So far, Xenoblade is the only game that will be limited to the New 3DS, but it seems to be a fair bet that there will be similarly-restricted games down...Read more...